DESCRIPTION: Applicant's Abstract The 7th Conference in the series on Drug Abuse, Immunomodulation and AIDS will take place on October 7-9, 1999 (Thursday-Saturday) on the NIH campus in the Masur Auditorium (Building 10). The conference title will be "Neuroimmune Interactions and Disease" in recognition of the role the neuroimmune axis plays in modulating infection and the disease process. The conference will span the broad area from basic research into the ligands and their receptors which modulate immune and neuronal function, through the effect that these changes have on disease progression and expression of the infectious agent, to the clinical manifestations these processes might engender. Within these areas, two foci will be paramount-the effects of drug addiction on these interactions and the resultant alterations, or lack thereof, on the manifestation and progression of HIV to AIDS. Speakers at the meeting will present their most recent data on a variety of models from the test tube in vitro through animal models to human clinical correlates. The presentations will address questions of viral replication and mutation in the peripheral immune system, of transfer of the virus to the neuronal system and its expression there and of the role various factors play in accelerating or retarding the infectious process. The role of drugs of abuse will be carefully discussed to determine whether it is significant to the progression. The mode of presentation will include symposium lectures which will provide overviews of individual topics, lectures featuring recent data from the investigator's laboratory, poster presentations and discussion groups at the end of each of the sessions. The participants will include clinicians and bench scientists plus a group of young scientists whose participation will be facilitated by Young Investigator Awards from the meeting grant. As in the past, the results of the meeting will be published in a timely manner either as a Plenum Press book or an independent volume of the Journal of Neuroimmunology.